Freehand tig welding technique - Tig Welding Pipe

Walking the Cup TIG welding technique on 4 inch Carbon Steel Pipe to Stainless flange using ER309L

Walking the cup or Freehand?  Which TIG welding technique is better?

Neither one is better and it is good to be able to do both.

Sometimes the situation calls for freehand...like when other pipes are in the way making walking the cup impractical.

But in the wide open spaces, or in a shop, walking the cup is a great way to tig weld pipe.

Freehand TIG Welding Technique for Root and Fill passes

I worked in a pipe fab shop for a while where they strongly encouraged the root pass to be freehanded using a straight back and forth technique with no sideways motion at all.

The idea behind that was to push the root in better using the lay wire method.

6g Pipe Welding Test 2 inch Schedule 80 Free hand

A 6G pipe test is a very common hire test to get on a job. 

2 inch pipe is big enough to walk the cup but for the video above we demonstrated the freehand method.

Socket Weld Overhead Freehand TIG Welding Technique

"Free hand or walking the cup....whats it gonna be?"